Laptop for Dad

[ColdFusion71]

Hey all. I'm planning on buying a laptop for my dad for father's day. I've offered to build him a desktop but he's vehemently against it so I'm going to have to get him a laptop. He's got an interesting use case so I'm having issues finding something that will work for him

• He teaches online classes where he has to give live lectures to students once a week so a decent webcam is a must
• He edits his lessons and uploads them, so needs something that can do some light video editing and encoding
• He uses a MIDI keyboard to record music and put it into finale to write sheet music
• His main complaint with his current computer is that it is slow in everything so I'm guessing the amount of RAM is low and the Harddrive is mechanical
• He Skypes a lot for his classes
• Also something with decent battery life
• He also likes having a full keyboard instead of a 10 keyless type

Finally we're looking to spend from $500 - $700 on this between the three of us. 

 

I saw this on Amazon and it looked pretty good but I was hoping for other input from the community

Acer 15'

 

Thanks everyone.

[Droidbot]

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ArbOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7Udd9hgamsdhHFUNEsqFWkgDr53QPe08f2qDA951txejWPnznDl9oWtph1S2Md%2b9Bn%2btxI2KazUTsiezfm%2bs4VJClg7Yg2SdN%2fP9CKVFhv9r9vUoSetp2KOn3%2bL%2bpw38EOVENI%2f7EJTrNChr8j3M%2bLjOiKEg2Lo%2fePtwifjPqalaKCtAWV78bjdW75gJ5xHzLQtRK9nVo5StLV

 

Dell Inspiron 13" - i7 7500u, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. 

with code ce15Insp21 it becomes $653

 

alternatively, last gen's version 

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ArbOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdT1lGIg8rOj%2byZYl%2bF13C%2bpW6Fzd8NLUo3RRjLEvUxaJMAZeUKUJzyuDngKUH0e2Xzu3Qb62Vlnj8%2bnO62KlT882HpwGD5AKsrDLxCj%2fWZKXRAX8z5r50N%2f%2fuqoECCcADWBM6I6fD2Pn%2fqpTPNRWe6SnzRHug00Co7fJ9VQKwohmXVx2dP2fhc%2b6XRIpz5VXLSDT1tcrXA4Y

i7 6500u, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD

with the code it becomes $543

[The Sloth]

if you can spend an extra 100$ get a dell Inspiron 7000. 

[thorsong]

I love my ThinkPad. Find one on NewEgg with the processor and screen you want, then buy your own SSD and RAM. That is what I did. Saved hundreds buying it that way. I don't recommend cheaping out on the screen though. I did. The 1366x768 screen from Lenovo sucks, bad. Get the 1080 IPS panel.

 

Link to an E560 on NewEgg